Some really important decisions here. Let me know, you baes!
(the part in italic is from Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay, ch.1)
I wake up with a startle. I open my eyes and I see Effie rubbing her wrist with a painful expression written on her face.
"Oh my God," I blurt out, panicking "I'm sorry-Oh my God.."
"Katniss calm down" she says quietly, raising her hand to stroke my hair. I avoid her touch.
"Did I hurt you? Where-?"
"You only grabbed me, and it was my fault.."
"How can possibly be your fault if I attacked you..?"
"First, you did not attacked me." she says "You grabbed my wrist, that's all. I'm fine. And second, it was very much my fault. I know you have nightmares and all, I shouldn't have touched you. But you were shaking so much and I didn't know.."
I prop myself up until our faces are at the same level.
"You did nothing wrong" I kiss her lightly "It's just..they got worse since I escaped the arena"
She leans in, pressing her lips softly onto mine.
"Do you dream about Peeta?" she asks, her deep blue eyes looking lovingly at me.
"Yes" I whisper "but it's not only him. Most of the time is Peeta, but there is also Johanna and you"
I pretend not to see her stirring as I mention Johanna's name. We haven't talk about the Quell, yet. I know this moment is every day nearer, and that I'll have to face it with her. I don't know what has been going on between Effie and Johanna, and I don't know if that is still something going on between them. I mean, the way they were looking at each other the night of the interviews, like they were going to rip each other's throat..it's clear that there has been something. And the way Johanna was so interested in talking about our relationship while we were in the arena has made me think.
"I'm always afraid of losing you" I murmur, lowering my eyes and intertwining our fingers.
"I'm here, dear. I'm not going anywhere without you" she squeezes my hand "I promise".
I nestle against her and she gently rubs my shoulders. It's then I notice she's already dressed. And then I notice the way she's dressed. The baggy trousers are gone, replaced with a sort of very much skinny grey pants that do nothing to hide her long legs. The shirt is still there, but it's not tucked into the trousers but it goes down and barely reaches the top of her knees. Her feet are trapped in her beloved high-heels, the only pair she has succeeded to bring from the Capitol.
"You are not planning on going out there like this, are you?" I ask, after staring at her for a long time.
"Why?" she asks, picking up her scarf from the floor, where I unceremoniously threw it "Don't you like me?"
Yes. But that's not the point.
"Of course I like you" I mutter, blushing "You would be pretty even if you wore a garbage bag"
She smiles and I feel proud of myself when I see her cheeks become pink.
"No need to flatter me, you know dear?" she giggles, finishing wrapping the piece of clothe around her head and thanking me with a kiss. I wonder how is it possible that my heart jumps into my chest every time she kisses me?
"You really want to walk out of that door like this" I state, after we part.
She turns around, hands on her hips "What's your point, Katniss?"
"This is not the Capitol. The people here seems to be quite strict about-"
"I know very much well we're not in the Capitol" she interrupts me, her voice suddenly cold "But even if we're convicted in these caves it doesn't mean I am supposed to act, leave alone to dress, like a savage."
I open my mouth to reply but I know it would be pointless. So I just shrug.
"By the way dear," she says, her voice warm again "you better dress up. I think they're waiting for us."
I furrow my eyebrows in confusion.
"Who is waiting for us?"
She sighs, then she raises her right arm, showing something like a tattoo written in the inside.
"8.00 – Commando." she reads out loud "I think they want you to come along, too. You're their Mockingjay, after all"
"I'm not anyone's Mockingjay" I snap angrily "I don't like their plan and I don't like them. What do they expect me to do? Uh? If they look for someone who reads speeches in front of the people, they rescued the wrong person. I'm not cut for that kind of crap"
She stiffens. Shit. I must have remembered it was her who wrote the speeches that Peeta and I read in front of the citizens of the Districts during the Victory Tour.
"Effie.." I begin, but she doesn't even look at me and she turns around, rolling the sleeves of the shirt up her arms.
"I won't be the one who tells you what you must or mustn't do" she murmurs "I've never been good at that, by the way, and certainly I don't want to"
Then she heads towards the door and disappears.
Xxxxxxx
As I walk through the corridors, I try to ignore the 8.00 – Commando line tattooed onto my flesh. I shake my head, trying to orientate myself in that underground labyrinth. I am starting to panic again when I feel a hand onto my shoulder. I turn around abruptly, ready to fight.
"Whoa Catnip!" Gale raises his hands in surrender "It's me"
I relax.
"Sorry" I mumble, dropping my arms and forcing a smile.
"Crazy, uh?" he comments, looking around as people surpass us like we're invisible "But they're not all bad".
"They hid for almost a century, while we were sent to the Hunger Games" I spit angrily "I don't think they can ever be good to me"
He doesn't answer. Instead he asks me if I had breakfast already. Then he shows me the way to the cafeteria.
"So," he begins, in a way that remembers me of Johanna "Heard they put you with Effie Trinket. How fabulous!" he sings playfully, mocking her absurd Capitol accent.
I force my lips into a smile "Yeah".
"I haven't seen her, yet. Boggs complained about her not wanting to leave her room" he comments as we walk through a sort of tunnel "I wonder how she looks like without her ridiculous dresses- and the wigs!, you have to tell me if she has hair on her head because for years I thought she was bald".
Oh, if only you could see her without her "ridiculous dresses" - I think, my mind flying back to the last night. I don't like the way he talks about her, though. I greet my teeth. He's way too similar to Johanna.
"You have such a face, Catnip" he chuckles "She really must be terrible"
"Are you going to the Commando, by the way?" he asks after a little while, pointing to my arm.
"I have nothing to say to them, Gale. I can't be what they want me to be" I say flatly.
He stops abruptly and when I turn around I find his eyes piercing mine like frosty ice.
"What?"
He shakes his head.
"Well, Catnip. I just didn't expect you to be so selfish" he says.
I can't believe my ears. What was that supposed to mean?
"Excuse me?" I hiss "How can you possibly call me selfish? Have you any idea of what I've been through? Like killing people that have not done anything to me until they tried to kill me against their will? Innocent people, Gale!"
"Yeah, Catnip" he replies, his voice as cutting as a knife "Well, I'm very sorry for what happened to you. You're right. I don't know how it is surviving the Games. I don't know what it means being in one of their arenas. I don't know. But do you really want this horror to continue? What if this happens to Prim? Or to Posy, to Rory, to Vick? What if it happens to some other little District Eleven's girl? The only thing I know is that people want to fight, people are ready to fight. Think about it, Katniss. They look at you as a leader, whether you like it or not. And if this flame fades, it could take seventy-five more years to set it ablaze again"
I am paralyzed. I don't know what to say. Gale never spoke like this to me, and the expression of disgust on his face hurts me more than two hundreds Hunger Games. Am I turning into another President Snow? Evil, selfish and cruel? It's the second time this morning that I somehow lead the people I love the most to think I am. And I am ashamed of myself.
Gale notices my expression and nods briefly.
"Go see what the Capitol did to Twelve, Catnip" he says before walking away "Then make your choice"
Xxxxxxxxxxx
When I show up at the Commando everyone goes silent.
Beetee stops pressing onto the keyboard. Boggs gives me a nod. Plutarch and Effie stop talking, he looks like Christmas has arrived earlier while a proud smile appears onto her lips. President Coin just stares at me.
I shift uncomfortably my weight from one foot to the other one, unsure about what I am supposed to do at this point. To greet? To give a wave? To stay silent waiting for someone who says I am allowed to speak?
"Katniss!" Plutarch finally chirps, approaching me with his arm spread "I'm so much glad to see you! Have you made a decision?"
"Yes" I hear my voice say. I look around and I see everybody's eyes on me. I swallow nervously. "I want to go to District Twelve".
The silence is so loaded that it almost hurts my ears. Then Coin arches a grey eyebrow.
"No" she says. The sound fills the air for a few seconds. Then the chaos.
"Why not?" Plutarch asks "We have hovercrafts, we can control her from the sky!"
"Our hovercrafts are not to the use and whims of Katniss Everdeen" says Coin flatly.
"And what if Capitol hovercrafts are waiting for her to come?" Boggs jumps in.
"This is nonsense!" shouts Plutarch.
"Not to say there's not much of District Twelve left to see" comments Coin.
I feel anger rise and I fist my hands. I hate the fact they're all talking about me as if I wasn't in the room.
"We're not risking her life for this absurdity"
"It's not absurdity! This may convince her that we're on the same side" says Plutarch.
The silence engulfs the room again.
Coin rubs her temples tiredly. Then her grey eyes lock with mine.
"Make yourself killed, Everdeen" she hisses "And I will personally bring you back to life only to kill you myself then".
Xxxxxxx
The summer's been scorching hot and dry as a bone. There's been next to no rain to disturb the piles of ash left by the attack. They shift here and there, in reaction to my footsteps. No breeze to scatter them. I keep my eyes on what I remember as the road, because when I first landed in the Meadow, I wasn't careful and I walked right into a rock. Only it wasn't a rock—it was someone's skull. It rolled over and over and landed faceup, and for a long time I couldn't stop looking at the teeth, wondering whose they were, thinking of how mine would probably look the same way under similar circumstances. I stick to the road out of habit, but it's a bad choice, because it's full of the remains of those who tried to flee. Some were incinerated entirely. But others, probably overcome with smoke, escaped the worst of the flames and now lie reeking in various states of decomposition, carrion for scavengers, blanketed by flies.I killed you, I think as I pass a you. And you . Because I did. It was my arrow, aimed at the chink in the force field surrounding the arena, that brought on this firestorm of retribution. That sent the whole country of Panem into chaos. […]The surface beneath my feet hardens, and under the carpet of ash, I feel the paving stones of the square. Around the perimeter is a shallow border of refuse where the shops stood. A heap of blackened rubble has replaced the Justice Building. I walk to the approximate site of the bakery Peeta's family owned. Nothing much left but the melted lump of the oven. Peeta's parents, his two older brothers—none of them made it to 13. Fewer than a dozen of what passed for District 12's well-to-do escaped the fire. Peeta would have nothing to come home to, anyway. Except me… I back away from the bakery and bump into something, lose my balance, and find myself sitting on a hunk of sun-heated metal. I puzzle over what it might have been, then remember Thread's recent renovations of the square. Stocks, whipping posts, and this, the remains of the gallows. Bad. This is bad. It brings on the flood of images that torments me, awake or asleep. Peeta being tortured—drowned, burned, lacerated, shocked, maimed, beaten—as the Capitol tries to get information about the rebellion that he doesn't know. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to reach for him across the hundreds and hundreds of miles, to send my thoughts into his mind, to let him know he is not alone. But he is. And I can't help him.
"Take me away" I whisper into the earpiece, and in a matter of seconds the hovercraft lands ten meters from where I am standing.
I run towards it and I jump on. I stay onto my knees and with my face buried into my hands until we're flying again.
"Katniss.." Gale appears next to me and puts one hand onto my back.
"Don't touch me" I murmur, salty tears streaming down my face.
He removes his hand but doesn't walk away.
"Katniss look, I'm sorry you had to do it like this..but you had to see what they have done to us, to our families, to our friends.."
I don't answer. I stare at the floor until my eyes burn and I have to close my eyelids. Other tears go down.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
As I land in Thirteen I go straight to my room, hoping to find Effie.
She's there. The moment I open the door she stands up from the bed and comes closer. I start to cry again and I throw myself in her arms. She hugs me back and rubs slowly my back as my body shakes with sobs.
"There were skeletons everywhere," I whisper "skulls, bones…I killed them all, Effie. It was me, I am responsible for all of this, I-"
"Don't be absurd, dear," she says softly, caressing my hair "It wasn't your fault. Please, don't cry"
I don't reply, I just stand there, engulfed in her arms, inhaling the scent of her skin that the cheap soap of Thirteen couldn't muffle.
"Don't cry, dear, don't cry" she continues to murmur into my hair "It's ok, Katniss"
It's not, I would like to scream but I just nod and press myself closer to her. She kisses my temple and pull a strand of hair off my face.
"I will be their Mockingjay" I whisper and I feel her grip tighten. She exhales tiredly.
"Is this what you want?" she asks me, looking into my eyes.
"You know there's only one thing I want," I say, returning the look "but Snow has destroyed almost everything I love, and I have to stop him before he takes something- someone else away from me".
"I will always support you, Katniss, I want you to know this" her eyes are glossy as she kisses me lightly on the lips "Whatever decision you'll make"
I close my eyes and I lean into the kiss.
I'll make him pay for it.
I'll make him pay for everything.